1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, method and program, and particularly relates to an information processing apparatus, method and program in which content can be easily selected in line with user's intention or feeling out of various contents by displaying a content selection screen on which a user can operate intuitively.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are methods to acquire music data and store the music data in a Personal Computer (PC): for example, a method of ripping music data from a Compact Disc (CD) and a method of using music delivery service in which one can download desired music from a music delivery server. In recent years, those methods are here to stay, and therefore users are enjoying the content, such as music data stored in the PC, through their Portable Device (PD).
Portability is an important factor for that kind of PD. This limits the size of a display screen of PD physically. Therefore, there are lots of ideas in order to retrieve and select desired content or application from those stored in the PD through the limited-size display screen.
For example, Jpn. Pat. Laid-open Publication No. 2003-330613 discloses a method in which a portable terminal device scrolls, in response to a drag operation on a touch panel, the names of applications in list format on a display screen, and determines the one displayed on a selection nomination area of the display screen as a selection candidate.
In addition, U.S. Pat. Publication No. 2003/0095096 discloses a method in which a portable terminal device (portable multimedia device) scrolls content names in linear list format on a display, and allows a user to retrieve his/her desired content easily through a rotatable input device.
Furthermore, U.S. Pat. Publication No. 2004/0055446 discloses a method in which a portable terminal device (portable multimedia device) displays genres, artists, album names and music hierarchically, and allows a user to retrieve his/her desired content easily.
The above methods are effective in retrieving music that a user already knows, especially in a case in which the PD stores several contents all of which he/she has recognized, or in a case in which most of contents stored in the PD are those ripped or downloaded by him/her.
That is to say, in a case in which the PD stores several contents all of which he/she has recognized, scrolling all the contents is easy for the user when retrieving his/her desired content out of them, like Jpn. Pat. Laid-open Publication No. 2003-330613 and U.S. Pat. Publication No. 2003/0095096. In addition, in a case in which most of contents stored in the PD are those ripped or downloaded by him/her, it is easy for the user to retrieve his/her desired content out of them through hierarchically-displayed information like U.S. Pat. Publication No. 2004/0055446, because he/she already knows the names of stored contents and words associated with those contents (such as album names, genres and artist names, if the content is music).